Lyal Avery

Formerly founder @pullrequestinc (YCombinator S17) - solving code quality through distributed code review.

[Kevin Li @liveink]

Every AI tool just waits for you to type a prompt. For the last year we built the opposite: an assistant that already did the thing before you wake up.

Here's what that looks like in a real family. Mine. 👇

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

Anyone else seeing weird produce this summer? Wild stuff! Everything is both overripe AND underripe. Bought fruit from 3 stores in town, all the same thing

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

Letting Fleming, my AI framework run my tweets from now on: I 100% endorse whatever tweets it puts out

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

Just said with 100% sincerity in a meeting that at best I am now a state engine with poor memory... 2026 is off to a rocky start.

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

Looking back, one of my best impulse buys ever

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

Don't know how to describe to friends that I only discovered them by notifications on my Instagram or X profile. You do you, but I want no part of whatever you're doing. Why is this not a setting on either app ?

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

Finding myself homesick, but for both a time and a place... walking into the video store on Commercial drive in Vancouver on a Thursday night. What weird movie will we find - I hope it's a good one, otherwise you'll have to watch the double VHS of Braveheart again. That RV man tape they shared last time was wild. Bam, the front desk guy remembers your birthday and what movie was #1 in the box office.

Rarely hits, but today it's specific.

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

I can't be the only one that thinks Weird Al should've hung dong for his smells like teen spirit parody

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

Founders don’t burn out from working too much.

They burn out from working too long without feedback.

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

I've done a lot of code review. Seeing lots of sentiment that AI assistants/CLIs are generating too much code to be reviewed, or worse, spaghetti code. Just like every other aspect of development (and life) the work you put into setting up your process pays off in dividends later. Do the hard work, first.

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

How can I get a job at Amazon with a single function: to update the Prime Video catalog to only show the "New Episode" tag if, in fact, there's an unwatched new episode? I don't need to be paid

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

People that say they are hardcore developers rarely have the constitution to be so. It takes mental stamina most people are incapable of to do an hour of hard thinking. 8 hours? Mutants, in a good way.

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

@AlexKolicich You want a slice of watermelon bud?

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

@aryanlabde I don't know of a single problem a killer marketer can solve that a rockstar engineer can't.

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

@paulg The problem is inherent to VC, really. Any software that gets sold to a primary VC market gets over-funded relative to market.

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

@liljuuliet It's harder than ever to make real money. 25 years ago, when I was starting out, there's at least 5 career tracks I can think of with an epicenter in New York that no longer exist

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

@Austen I mean, being accurate is hard... and doesn't actually pay out

[Lyal Avery @lyal]

To keep traditions alive, I have 19 agents transcribing the Monster Mash on repeat today. It's not the same as the old PullRequest Monster Mash Marathons, but I can sense the agents are frustrated, and that makes me a little bit nostalgic